point of saying something about "I told you so,"
but he thought better of it, for you remember that it had been his idea
to fasten the stable when they first came in. "I guess the only thing
for us to do is to make a rush for it when they discover us," said Jim,
"and trust to our luck which seems uncommon bad of late."

"Due to turn," said Berwick; "it's run against us long enough."

The men's voices below had suddenly ceased, and then there were signs of
a vigorous search on the lower floor. It was only a question of a little
time when the search would reach the hay loft, where our two friends
were in hiding, and then--

"I'm going to crawl around and see if I can't find some way of getting
out of this trap," declared Jim.

"All right, I'll stay here and guard our common fireside," replied the
engineer with his queer twist of humor.

"Speaking of firesides," remarked Jim; "if they would only set fire to
this place they would surely get us."

"It would be a case of roast pig, as Charles Lamb says," put in John
Berwick.

"The two would go well together, was he a sheep or a mutton," said Jim
coarsely, for be it known James was not much of an authority on English
literature, the only classics with which he was fully acquainted being,
"The Frontier Boys in Every Part of the World," which, with Shakespeare,
forms a complete library.

"I fear you are nothing but a Bravo, James," remarked his friend.

"What's that?" Jim inquired. "Some other time will do just as well," he
declared, "I am going scouting."

Suiting the action to the word, he started to crawl along the wall, and
it did not take him long to get free of the hay, and raising his head,
he saw something that made him draw down hurriedly, and take the trail
back to where his comrade was waiting.

"What luck?" asked Berwick.

"Not a place where a rat could crawl out," remarked Jim, "but you just
wait. I think there is something going to happen."

There did, but it was not exactly what was expected. It was evident that
the search below was over, and after a brief parley, heavy feet could be
heard coming up the ladder. At the moment that the leader's head
appeared through the opening, a gray and ghostly figure rose with its
weird, shrill cry of rage that startled the two comrades safely hidden
in the hay.

The effect upon the intruders can be easily guessed. These superstitious
Mexicans had known vaguely of a woman haunting this castle by the sea.
Someti